A good hiding place
by lisarazmotte
Summary: A short ficlet of the night before Jake and Rosas's trial :) It's a bit…. angsty, so I'm sorry for that!


_July 23rd, 2017_

He needs to hide it.

His trial is tomorrow, and by now there is a very big chance him and Rosa will go to jail. Amy still has a lot of hope, she's in their kitchen right now, going over the evidence the prosecution has against them, trying to find a flaw. But Jake is starting to understand that this might be the last night he spends in their apartment for a long time, so he's sitting on the bed, staring at the wall, the small box in his hand. He's not ready to have The Talk with Amy yet, about what will happen to them if he's found guilty. He's not ready for it, not ready to admit out loud that tonight could very well be their last night together. But he's accepted it, to some level anyway. And now he needs to hide a ring.

He's turning the box between his fingers, thinking. In the eventuality that he's not coming back home tomorrow night, he needs to find a place that is both safe enough to put something so precious in, and hidden enough that Amy won't risk finding it while cleaning up. This last one is the hardest, really. A safe place is easy, he already thought of a thousand possibilities that are super safe. But Amy cleans and tidies _everything_. It never annoyed him before, but then again, he never tried to hide something from her that she's not supposed to find for fifteen years. He looks around the room, trying to be creative, but he can't think of a hidden enough place.

He should have waited to buy the engagement ring, but once his decision was made, he didn't want to wait. He remembers the night clearly. Him on his phone reading an article about a possible remake of Die Hard, Amy beside him, doing her crosswords. He remembers her indignation at a typo. He remembers how perfect this moment was between them, and how he knew that he was going to ask her to marry him. She was working the next day, and he spent the morning looking for the perfect engagement ring, and the afternoon crafting an elaborate proposal plan, one involving him Die Harding off a building, a trained monkey, and some very extravagant fireworks.

Three weeks later, he was being arrested for the bank robberies, and his whole engagement plan flew out the window.

It's mid July now, his original proposal date has come and gone, and his plan is relegated to some obscure place in his mind. He can't propose to her now, he doesn't want to do this to her. Because if he were to march in the kitchen right now, get on one knee and propose, and if she was to say yes, it would mean that he'd shackled her to him for the rest of his life. And that's not what he wants when he's risking fifteen years in jail. He loves her too much to force her to stay with him in that case.

But that doesn't solve his problem, and for all his thinking, he's still sitting on the bed with the box in his hand. Suddenly, he has an idea, somewhere Amy won't glean up, _someone_ he can trust with this. He gets up, slides the box in his pocket and goes to the bathroom. He gets the half empty bag out of the trash can, stuffs it with toilet paper to make it look like it's full, closes it, and goes to the front door. Amy looks up at him when he passes, so he smiles, shows her the bag and she understands where he's going. Once the bag is discarded down the trash conduit, he enters phase two of his plan.

He knocks on the door of Mrs Goldstein, their 70 year old neighbor. She always liked them, she's always up late so he won't be bothering her, and she invites them over for tea all the time, so she's probably his best shot.

"Jake, dear!"

"Hello Mrs Goldstein, how are you?"

"Good, good. How about you, how are you?"

"Good. Listen, I wanted to ask you a favor," he says as he takes the box out of his pocket, "I would need you to hold on to this for a while, do you think you could do that for me?"

She takes the box from his hand. "Well, sure, dear. How long do you want me to keep it?"

"I don't know exactly. Probably only until tomorrow night but… It might be a while longer."

She seems to understand what he's referring to because her voice is softer when she answers.

"Oh, yes that's right, it's tomorrow isn't it? Well don't worry dear, it won't go anywhere until you're back!"

"Thank you, Mrs Goldstein.

"You're welcome, Jake. And good luck for tomorrow."

He's back in the apartment a second later, and nothing has changed. Amy is still looking over the case, her hair held back in a loose bun, strands of them falling around her face. She's beautiful in his gray hoodie, and panic starts rising in him. This might be the last time he sees her so casual, standing in their kitchen, and he's not ready to let go. He goes behind her an encircles her in his arms. Because if he is to never marry her, he can at least tell her he loves her.


End file.
